Luke Fair & Desyn Masiello on In House We Trust 3 and more...

So the tour has been amazing?

Desyn: Most of it, yeah. Bear in mind that Luke and I aren’t big names. A lot of places we play - considering also that in some countries, especially the U.S. and the UK, the club scene is suffering a little bit - it can be difficult sometimes to pull a big crowd, but about 80% of the gigs we’ve done so far have been really good and really busy, which we’ve been happy about.

You’re getting a nice crowd – people dancing...

Desyn: Yeah. We’ve been to some clubs where people come up and ask me for Tiesto music, hip hop and R&B, which is cool, but you don’t expect that in a house club, but it still happens. Luckily, we’ve done quite a lot of edits of R&B songs. Even for these few annoying people that come up to request music, we can keep them happy as well. That’s the idea – to keep everyone happy.

So if someone comes up to you and asks for a hip hop track, you’ll throw it in?

Desyn: I’ll try you know. I always do try to please everyone. As a DJ, if you’re not pleasing everyone, it kind of upsets you a little way. You feel like you’re not doing your job properly. Well, it definitely does to me. So I’ll try to accommodate them within my style --- if they’ve asked nicely [laughter]. Everything I play I love. I wouldn’t play anything I didn’t love.

As an artist then, did you find the IHWT 3 project limiting?

Desyn: Very limiting. My style of deejaying is to surprise people and play certain things maybe you wouldn’t expect to hear and to play a lot of different genres of music. The good thing about Yoshitoshi is that they’re quite open-minded. On their catalog, they have deep house, tech house, progressive house, techno...and that was good. So it wasn’t limiting in that way; it was only limiting, because most of the things I heard on the CD, I probably wouldn’t play in a normal set.

Really, the best ones were used in the last one by Behrouz and MV. Deep Dish did the first one, which I thought was amazing. They picked the best of the best and that left us with fewer tracks.

I was left with 15 tracks that I wanted to use. I got around the problem of just playing the tracks as they were by doing a lot of edits. I think I edited around 6 records and some of them were complete re-edits. I made new tracks out of two – used a cappellas and things to bring more life to some of the older records.

The limitations of this project then forced you to be more creative?

Desyn: It kind of forced me to do that, but I do that anyway. When I deejay, 50% of what I play are edits. I think by editing records - even to a dance music connoisseur who knows all his tracks - if you edit records you’re introducing records that they know, but in a different way. It’s a fresh feeling. It’s really good to hear an a cappella on a record that you haven’t heard before. It’s almost like doing a new mix.

Now I haven’t heard Luke’s mix, so I can’t comment, but on my mix, I think that it would sound good in a club, because I tried to put all the Yoshitoshi sounds on there – from the old stuff, to progressive, to techno, and maybe it’s not such a home-listening thing. In a club, it would probably flow a lot better, because it’s twisting through styles and things - opposed to a CD. If a proper CD of my own music were to be released, I would bear in mind that someone was going to listen to it in their car or at home. So I change my music for that. Some tracks will work in clubs, but won’t work in the car...sometimes. But with the Yoshi CD, you don’t have that flexibility. You’ve got what you’ve got and whether it sounds good at home or better in a club, it doesn’t matter. You’ve just got to use it.

That must have been frustrating from you?

Desyn: Frustrating, yeah, but we did the best we could and even though we were frustrated at the time, the opportunity that they had given us – well - not many DJs now are doing compilations at the moment...like new DJs. You either got to be prior established, or have a really big buzz about you, someone like James Zabiela, who’s just done an incredible amount in the last few years. Apart from that, new DJs doing mix cds are quite few and far between. Maybe you can count on two hands in a year how many and that’s not many, considering the amount of DJs out there - tens of thousands up-and-coming amazing DJs, but only maybe 10 new DJs get a chance to do something like this. So yeah, it’s frustrating, but on the other hand, very grateful, very honored to be given the opportunity to do it.

You haven’t been able to listen to Luke’s set at all...

Desyn: We’re just too focused on what we’re doing. I’m obsessively listening to every single dance music release out there - always looking for that secret weapon - that gem. I find that there is a lot of amazing music out there, but also a lot of rubbish. The quality control has gone up a lot more in the past year though, because record sales have dropped. Technology has made it easy for everybody, so quality has gone down. There’s less thought involved and more computers doing the work.

There are a lot of generic tracks out there that are ineffective...

Desyn: Exactly. I’m more focused on finding those really good records that will make my sets better and spending time editing tracks or editing older stuff that’s really good – bringing it a little more up-to-date.

He’s (Luke) the same really.

So how did you and Luke get selected for this comp? Is it because you’re both part of Bullitt Bookings?

I don’t know really. [laughter]

I’ve never put out a track or a remix out on Yoshi. Luke’s put a few tracks out – had a few remixes. We both belong to Bullitt, which is Arash’s agency - Ali’s brother. I guess Deep Dish had an opportunity to choose two people from the agency that they wanted to push at this particular time. Luckily it was us two.

How did you get recruited by Bullitt Bookings?

Ah...you’re asking secrets.

It comes down to two things: really, really, really hard work and dedication, so that you’re noticed by people like Deep Dish that have the power to help you. I think that’s the main thing – hard work, dedication, and...luck. I think you need a lot of luck. I think you need talent, but not a lot. [laughter] Knowing some of the right people helps, but you don’t really need to know anyone. I think you need to be clever with what you do.

Five years ago, I didn’t know anyone. I was in a regular job for six years. Stuck.

desyn

What were you doing?

I was in computers. I started off as a programmer, moved into computer sales and that was like a 9-5, get up at 7 o’clock, put your suit on, drive to work, every day for six years, sit in an office full of very different people, and basically, it’s a trap that a lot of people are in.

Even though I had this road map laid out for me, I still managed, because I worked so hard to get out of that.

I spent a long time getting together a lot of really exclusive tracks. I’m not going to tell you how. That’s another secret. People have to work out their own secrets [laughter] or else I’m not going to have any. But I spent a long time getting together, what I thought, were amazing records that nobody had. There’s no point in doing a mix CD of amazing records that people have heard a hundred times. It’s not going to do anything to you.

So it was the CD. That was how I got recognized. I got together all these exclusive tracks, put together a mix CD and at this stage, not one person knew about Desyn Masiello – and I made 50 copies. This was about 3, 4 years ago. I put a message on the dance boards and said, “Look, free CD” and gave it to as many friends in the industry that I knew. The CD was a really good CD, so everybody told me. Within about 6 months, the CD got around – got copied and copied. If you put good music out there, it will get around.

Even those who don’t know that much about music will appreciate good music when they hear it...

Desyn: Absolutely. And more so now. Most of the stuff that’s out there is monotonous and formula-based, especially the progressive stuff. That’s why progressive house got such a bad slating. All the young guys coming into it could suddenly make music. They made formula progressive and it all started sounding the same.

A lot of the labels are responsible for this as well.

[Luke, the whole time sitting next to Desyn, distracted by one of the promoters, gets up. Desyn asks if he’s getting a drink. They joke around for a bit, throwing words like “master” and “snappy” as Luke walks over to the bar]

Do you think that it is no longer possible to make it as just a DJ?

Desyn: Yeah, unless you are a phenomenally, mind-blowing DJ, and I’d say that there’s only 1 or 2 of those that have come out in the last 3 years.

Who do you think are those two?

Desyn: Danny Howells and James Zabiela. These are DJs that have been given the gift. They’re just born with it. It doesn’t really matter how hard you work, you won’t be as technically talented as these guys.

Unless you’re one of them, to make it as a DJ I think you have to have some good productions or be doing something different as a DJ.

I haven’t really put out any productions before, and I got where I am just by deejaying. Now I don’t think I’m as good as anyone like Danny Howells or James Zabiela, but I think I’ve been different and have had a different enough approach to stand out. So you can still do it, but yeah, I think that the majority needs a big production - a big record to kick you off.

[Luke returns with the drinks]

How has it been between you two? Have you guys been getting along?

Desyn: I hate him, the wanker. [laughter]

No, he’s wicked and it’s been really good actually. We’re both easy-going and haven’t had any big arguments yet. The only minor one we had, and it wasn’t an argument, was based on who was going to play first last weekend in Romania. We both for some reason really wanted to play first.

Why was that?

Well, whoever goes on last, can’t really do the warm-up...and we both love doing the warm-up bit, because you get to build it up. I mean, you can, if you’re going on second, drop it straight down and build it up again, but you need a very open-minded crowd.

Which is very difficult to find.

Desyn: Yeah, I’d say more like impossible for the most part.

Luke: A lot of people don’t even notice the DJs change, so all of a sudden they hear the music drop and they’re like, “Huh?”

Desyn: Yeah. Like most of the clubs we play, because we’re not big names, we’re not filling the clubs in general. For instance, if Danny Howells or Deep Dish were playing in a club, it doesn’t matter what they do, the supporters are staying the whole night. Where as with us, obviously a certain amount of people come to see us and they’re going to stay until the end, but we’ve got to bear in mind that the rest of these people have never heard of us and we have an extra job of keeping those people in the club. So for us to go on half way through the night and drop it, you’re going to lose a good amount of people.

So have you guys tag-teamed?

Luke: Yeah. There’s been a couple times where towards the end of the night, after both of us have played a decent-sized set, we’ll go back-to-back, only if the party’s going really well. And if we’re having a lot of fun, we’ll definitely do that. We’re going to do this more as we get more comfortable with each other playing-wise as well.

Do you think your sounds mesh together well enough to present a smooth and interesting tag-team set?

Desyn: I think the first time we tried it was definitely a no-no. Luke: Yeah.

It’s getting progressively better though.
Desyn: Do you remember Lithuania? We were like...
Luke: Which night in Lithuania?
Desyn: The first night there. The club owner said, “Ok. The club’s closing at three.” Then when we got there he goes, “You guys ok playing until 6?” And we were like... [makes a surprised face] . Tell us that half way through our set after we’ve played all our main records! So we decide to play back-to-back.
[Luke and Desyn look at each other]
Desyn: Didn’t really work out that well. We played Romania last weekend and played back-to-back for 5 hours at the end of the night.

Every other record?

Desyn: Yeah and it went really well...really well.

So you guys are getting more used to each other’s deejay style?

Luke & Desyn: Yeah.

Desyn: Totally. Now we’ve played together at least 10-15 times. I know a lot of his music; he knows a lot of what I play. So yeah, it’s working better. If we were to do it properly, it would be with 4 decks, 4 CDJs and 2 mixers. So when we’re playing records, we can play with a cappellas and stuff over it and that would be a perfect way to tag-team. Otherwise, you’re just hearing record after record... [looking over at Luke] should we tag-team tonight?

Luke: Yeah – I think we should.

yoshitoshi

To read the review of In House We Trust 3 mixed by Luke and Desyn - hit the following link...
Review : In House We Trust 3 Mixed by Luke Fair and Desyn Masiello.